


Just a Shadow of Myself

by Disasteriffic_Kaz



Series: Stone Cold Crazy Shadows [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Case Fic, Gen, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-17
Updated: 2014-04-17
Packaged: 2018-01-19 17:43:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 14,422
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1478422
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Disasteriffic_Kaz/pseuds/Disasteriffic_Kaz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean has vanished and a shadow portrait is the only lead Sam and Bobby have to follow. Post 3x10 "DaLDoM and Tagged to "Stone Cold Crazy" the usual hurt/limp/awesome!Sam/Dean with a dash of awesome!Bobby for taste.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Author's note: This story is a direct continuation of the end of "Stone Cold Crazy". I suppose you could read this without that but…why would you want to and miss part of the story? :D
> 
> Do please Review once you've read. :D Every comment and vote of support helps keep me writing. Not to mention if I've pooched anything, someone can always tell me. :P
> 
> Beta'd by the always awesome JaniceC678 :D – Friend and Muse's co-conspirator.
> 
> **Follow me on Facebook as "Disasteriffic Kaz" for frequent fic updates or just to chat!

 

_ _

_**-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-** _

_**CHAPTER 1** _

_With the Basilisk and Margerie, the witch dead, they had decided to spend a couple days at Bobby's salvage yard to give Sam's leg a chance to heal properly. Sam opened the Impala's trunk and tossed his bag in then shivered as a sudden chill passed over his entire body. He looked up as Bobby came out of the room next to theirs and shook it off. "Hey Bobby."_

" _Where's princess? Still gettin' his beauty sleep?"_

_Sam grinned at him. "Bathroom."_

" _Well tell him to move his ass." Bobby smiled at Sam and climbed up into the cab of his truck. "I ain't spendin' another day in there with those creepy shadow portraits."_

_Sam chuckled. "I'll get him." He limped back into the room and sighed, seeing the bathroom door still closed. He rolled his eyes. "Dean! Bobby's waiting on us." He went to the door and banged on it. "Dude, we can leave without you." He waited for Dean's rant and frowned when it didn't come. "Dean?" Sam knocked on the door again, then put his ear to it and listened. He heard nothing. "Ok, not funny. Dean!" Sam banged on the door and took the knob. "I'm coming in. Last warning." He waited and when he heard nothing, turned the knob and pushed it open…onto an empty room._

" _Dean?" Sam stepped into the bathroom and swallowed hard as fear rose up to choke him. There was no sign of his brother. "What's going on?" There was no window in the bathroom for him to have left by. Sam stumbled back into the bedroom and looked around in confusion. "Dean!" He'd been outside. There was no way Dean had left the room and not been seen._

_Sam ran to the door and looked out into the parking lot, again seeing no sign of his brother; only Bobby as the truck's engine rumbled to life. He turned back and stared at the room. "This isn't happening. This is not…Dean? Come on, where are you?" He stepped out of the door to get Bobby and froze. Sam turned back to the room slowly as shock coursed through him and walked in a stumbling step across the carpeted floor to the wall. Sam raised a shaking hand to the row of shadow portraits on the wall and let his fingers ghost over the profile of a portrait he knew had not been there ten minutes earlier. He would know that profile anywhere and the impossibility of seeing it there now strangled him with terror._

" _Dean."_

Sam stood frozen with his fingers resting lightly on the cool glass over the shadow portrait that somehow…impossibly…was his brother. "Dean," he whispered, horrified, to Dean's profile. "This isn't possible." The sound of a truck's engine jerked him into motion. Sam spun and ran out of the room. Bobby's truck was just starting to pull away and Sam staggered out in front, slapping his hands on the hood as Bobby squealed to a stop.

"What the hell are you thinkin'? Sam! I could've…" Bobby didn't finish the thought and threw the truck into park and jumped out. He ran around to the front and reached out as Sam grabbed his shoulders. The look on Sam's face was one of sheer panic. "Sam? What's wrong?"

"He's gone! Bobby, Dean's gone and he's on the wall!" Sam stammered and could hear himself close to hyperventilating but was unable to stop it.

"Whoa! You're not makin' any sense here. Sam, where's your brother?" Bobby took his arm and pulled him toward the room and inside. "Dean! Get out here!" He yelled.

"He's gone," Sam went to the wall and took down the shadow portrait, holding it as though it would break and showed it to Bobby. "Look. This can't be…how is this…"

Bobby stared at the picture in complete confusion. "Sam, what…" He narrowed his eyes as something about the creepy black portrait caught his eye, a certain turn of the jaw line and then he saw the nose, the brow line and his eyes opened wide as shock blew through him. "Oh, my God."

Sam pulled the picture back and stared down at it. "Bobby…"

"Easy, son." Bobby took Sam's shoulders and pushed him down into a chair. His mind was spinning in confusion, and Sam…he looked close to absolute panic. "Take a breath. We'll…we'll figure this out…somehow."

Sam just sat with the picture in his lap in a fog. He should be doing…something, he thought but couldn't get his mind to cooperate. He couldn't resolve the knowledge that he had been speaking to his brother only moments before and now…he stared back down at the portrait. As he looked at his brother's profile, Margerie's last words came back to him…

" _Don't think...this means...you're safe…_ _" Margerie whispered brokenly as she smiled at Sam and her eyes glazed over as death took her._

"Margerie." Sam looked up at Bobby. "She knew this was going to happen."

"Sam, she's dead." Bobby shook his head and put a comforting hand on his shoulder. "Salted and burned the bitch myself. She didn't have anything to do with this."

"No. She knew. She told me before she died." Sam set the portrait gently on the bed and stood. "Maybe the housekeepers know something. Watch him…the…the portrait." He ran from the room.

Bobby picked up the picture and stared sadly down at it. "Dean. Dammit, what the hell happened to you?"

Sam ran down the length of the motel to the rental office and slammed inside. "Hello?" He banged the bell on the counter but no one answered. His eyes caught on more of the shadow portraits hung in the office. He went around the counter and stuck his head in the back room; it too was empty but for more portraits. "Dammit." He ran back outside and banged on the door of the first motel room, glancing briefly at the car parked out in front of it. When no one answered he went to the next room and the next. "Where the hell is everyone?" He limped at a run back down the length of the building to the laundry room and inside.

"Hello? Anyone?" Sam checked the three connected rooms and found no one…only more portraits hung on the walls.

"Sam?" Bobby stuck his head in the door as Sam came back out and frowned at how pale his face was. "You find anyone?"

"No," Sam came outside and didn't argue when Bobby took his arm to steady him as he limped on his sore leg. "Bobby, there's no one. How can there be no one here?"

"I dunno, but you need to get off that leg already." Bobby pulled him along to the room and inside, letting him sit on Dean's bed. "I'm gonna check the other rooms. You just…on second thought, come here. Take that." He waited for Sam to pick up the portrait and got him back on his feet. "You're not staying in here on your own." Bobby took Sam outside and got him in the passenger seat of the Impala, figuring he'd be more comfortable there. "Be right back."

Sam nodded, in a daze and couldn't stop staring at his brother's profile in black paper on white under the glass. "Dean, where are you?" He looked up and watched Bobby pick the lock on the room next to theirs and vanish inside. Sam held his breath and released it in a whoosh of relief when Bobby reappeared a moment later, giving him a wave before he moved to the next room.

Bobby's agitation grew as he went down the building and found each room as empty as the next except for a growing collection of shadow portraits lining the walls of every room. He reached the first room next to the office and picked the door open, not even bothering to knock. He was starting to have a very bad feeling. The car parked in front of the room had grass sprouting around its tires and the tires themselves looked as though they were slowly deflating from disuse. He pushed the door open and flicked the light on. A bag lay open on the bed with the clothes still inside and a travel cup of coffee sat on the bedside table. He picked it up, pried the lid off and wrinkled his nose. The coffee inside had long solidified and started to dry, leaving a brown stain down the inside of the mug.

"What the hell is going on?" Bobby ran a finger over the table and left a line in the layer of dust. He went to the wall and looked at the shadow portraits hanging there. He had the sudden feeling of being watched and it made his skin crawl. He left the room and went out and into the rental office next door. He had spoken to the clerk when he'd come in; a younger man with a lip ring that had made Bobby curl his lip. Bobby looked at the portraits on the wall and went closer, around the desk, to peer at the one closest to the door. There was the clear outline of a lip ring on the profile of the man in the picture.

"Holy crap," Bobby breathed. He backed out of the office and jogged back to the Impala and Sam. He went to the passenger side, opened the door and knelt down to look in at him. "How you doin', Sam?"

Sam looked over at him and nodded. "I'm alright. Sorry about…before. Lost it a little."

"Understandable." Bobby smiled for him. "There's a motel down the street. You good enough to follow me?"

"What? We're not leaving," Sam said in surprise. "No way. We're not leaving until we find him. Bobby, I can't!"

"Sam!" Bobby took a firm grip on his arm. "We can't stay here. I got a bad feeling that anyone who stays here ends up on the damn walls. Hell, I'm startin' to wonder if the desk clerk or those housekeepers were ever even here." He gentled his voice. "We're not leaving him, but we need to figure this out and we can't do it from here. Not yet, now slide over and follow me." He shut the door and didn't leave Sam time to argue.

Sam scowled at Bobby's back as he got into his truck but after a moment, he slid over behind the wheel and set Dean's portrait on the passenger seat. It hit a little too close to home; having only the portrait of his brother in the car. The lack of his presence and being behind the wheel where Dean belonged made Sam's chest ache with the loss. He looked down at the ignition and choked back the sob that tried to break free. Dean had the keys. Sam closed his eyes and took a deep breath then bent down to hotwire the car with a whispered apology to his brother, wherever he was.

_**-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-** _

Dean blinked furiously as a bright light overtook him and then shook himself. "What the hell was that? Sam?" He called and looked around. He was standing outside. "How'd I get out here?" He whipped his head around at the sound of Bobby's voice and looked over to see the older Hunter putting his brother in the car. "Bobby! Sam! What's going on?" Dean went over to them and frowned, looking around the parking lot and to the street beyond. The world seemed to have been covered over with a grey film. He blinked again, trying to clear it and growled when it didn't work.

"Be right back." Bobby told Sam and Dean watched him shut the passenger and walk back to the motel.

Dean stared in confusion. "Bobby!" The older man didn't so much as twitch with Dean's voice. He turned instead to his brother and went to the passenger door. "Sam?" Sam didn't look up at him. Dean reached for the door handle and jerked in shock as his hand passed through it. "Whoa…what the…Sam?" He tried to touch the handle again and sucked in a fearful breath when nothing happened. "Shit, am I….no. I can't be dead." Dean looked around wildly in a panic. "If I were dead I'd be in…" He ran to their room and inside, looking for his own body. He heaved a breath in relief when he didn't find himself lying dead somewhere. In spite of the circumstances, he couldn't help shaking his head as he recalled Sam's rueful, "Our lives are weird, man" comment made during a hunt a while back. Yeah…looking for your own dead body as a logical course of action definitely fell right in line with that particular observation.

"Ok. Not dead. That's good." Dean went back out to the car, looking down the building and saw Bobby pick the lock on a room door and go inside. He went to the Impala and looked in at his brother again. Sam sat in the passenger seat with his eyes glued to one of those shadow portraits in his lap. "Sam, what the hell is happening?" Dean leaned in further, trying not to freak out as his head passed through the window, and he stared at the picture. Something about it was familiar, and the way Sam was cradling it in his hands told him he should recognize the person.

"Sam?" Dean took a moment to study his brother's face. It was pale and drawn and there was a clear look of barely contained panic around his eyes, and his hitched breathing as he held the picture told Dean that whatever was wrong was bad…very bad. He looked back down at the portrait and, the moment he saw it, he jerked back is if physically struck.

"No." Dean reared back from the car. "No way." It was his own profile he was looking at in the portrait. "No fuckin' way! Sam! I'm right here!" Dean shouted and shouted in frustration as his hands passed through the hood of the car and Sam made no sign that he'd heard or seen him. He looked up as Bobby came back to the car and shivered, stepping clear as Bobby passed right through him and opened the door to kneel beside his brother. He listened to them talk, to Bobby telling Sam they were going to a different motel, and when Bobby shut the door on Sam's argument and got in his truck, Dean hurriedly took a breath and slid through the closed door of the Impala into the passenger seat.

"What? I can't touch anything but I can sit on a damn seat? Really?" Dean shouted angrily and looked down, realizing he was sitting on his portrait. He watched Sam grip the steering wheel and look down; saw him choke back what could only be a sob. "I'm right here, kiddo," Dean said softly and reached a hand out to him, wishing he could touch him and let him know. He frowned when Sam bent under the dash and his eyes widened. Dean dug in his pocket and came out with the keys.

"Son of a bitch!" Dean yelled as his little brother hotwired his baby, shaking his head in frustration as he heard Sam's murmured apology.

_**-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-** _

Sam leaned back from the stack of papers Bobby had brought back from the library and rubbed his eyes. His head was splitting, his leg throbbing, and he wanted sleep. One glance at the shadow portrait of his brother, however, had him leaning back to the research with a sigh.

"Dammit, Sammy. You need sleep," Dean grumbled at his brother from where he stood over his shoulder. "Oughta kick your ass." He sighed and rolled his eyes. "If I _could_ kick your ass right now. Makin' a note; kick your ass later." He waved uselessly as Bobby came back in to the room. It was a step up on their former room. The walls and carpet were a nice, warm blue, the bedspreads a non-descript beige and no creepy ass pictures on the walls.

"Sam. You need to get some sleep," Bobby said as he set a bag and two coffees on the table in front of the young man.

"Yes! That's what I've been tryin' to tell the geek." Dean threw his arms out in frustration, growling as his right passed through the wall. "This sucks!"

"Not gonna find your brother if you fall asleep." Bobby smiled at Sam's shadowed eyes.

"I'm good, Bobby. I can handle it." Sam picked up one of the coffees and took a sip. "We have to find him." He pulled a couple sheets he'd marked out and pushed them across the table. "I found a few references to the motel and disappearances about twenty years ago."

"Saw those too," Bobby nodded and sat across from him. "Cops thought it was a serial killer taking people but they could never prove it."

"Well, definitely wasn't a serial killer." Sam leaned back again. "How can no one have noticed an entire motel where people just go missing?"

Bobby shrugged. "I don't know. I'm still tryin' to wrap my head around that." He nodded to the shadow portrait on the bed that would normally be Dean's. "That is some serious black mojo, and I haven't found anyone yet in this town who could do that…or still be doing it…and not one Hunter has noticed."

"Maybe it's more insidious than that." Sam looked up at him and then over at his brother's profile. "We saw a desk clerk. We talked to him. And then there's the cleaning crew I heard the first day we came in. Whatever…whoever has done this, they obviously have some level of control over the people that are…trapped."

"Or dead." Bobby added and then groaned as Sam shot him an angry glare. "Sam, I'm sorry. He's not dead."

"No. He's alive, somewhere, and we're going to find him."

"Damn right, Sammy." Dean smiled at the fierce expression on his brother's face. "Faster would be better. I'm friggin' starvin'." He watched Bobby pull a burger out of the bag and drooled. "Great. It's not bad enough I'm pullin' a Swayze, here but I'm gonna starve while I'm at it?" He scowled at Sam when he pushed away the salad Bobby shoved in front of him. "Stubborn ass."

"Not hungry," Sam muttered and kept his eyes on the papers in front him. He didn't need to see the disapproving look in Bobby's eyes. He sighed suddenly and pulled the salad back as if he could hear Dean nagging him. "Thanks, Bobby."

Bobby swallowed past the lump of emotion in his throat. He knew Sam was struggling with the suffocating terror that Dean was already dead and in Hell months ahead of schedule. "We'll find him, Sam. We will."

"I know," Sam nodded and took a bite of the salad, chewing and swallowing though it made his stomach turn. He moved on to the next stack of papers and scanned down the text. He dropped his fork and leaned forward, staring at the grainy, Xeroxed picture on the page. "Bobby."

"You find something?" Bobby moved around behind him and looked over his shoulder.

"What? Tell me you figured this out," Dean said and stood over Sam's other shoulder to look down. There was a fuzzy picture of their motel and, beside it, another picture of an old woman holding one of the shadow portraits up for the camera.

"This is it. It has to be," Sam whispered and read the article in earnest. Josephine Grant had made a name for herself at the age of seventy-two cutting shadow portraits of the people who stayed in her motel. At her grandson's behest, she had gathered them all and taken them to the big city to put them on display in a gallery. Contrary to what she had expected, her portraits had been ripped apart in the press as childish displays of mediocre art at its worst. Josephine had come home in disgrace with still more articles saying they thought the showing had been a joke rather than a serious display. The townsfolk had not been any kinder. On learning how badly the showing had gone, the motel became disused as people avoided it and the dark cloud that seemed to hang over it. For her part, Josephine had made a very public threat that someday people would understand her work.

"She cursed the place," Bobby said and leaned back. "Somehow, that crazy old bat cursed the motel and her damn shadow portraits."

"This was over twenty years ago, Bobby." Sam looked up at him. "Right around the time Margerie's grandmother was still active. What are the odds?"

"Slim and none. Dammit." Bobby ran a hand through his hair under his hat. "Not a damn person left we can ask for information about her."

"Well, there better be SOMEone you can ask!" Dean shouted. He stalked across the room and glared down at his portrait. "Crazy old bitch! What did you to me?" He slammed his hand down toward the portrait and reared back in surprise as it shook on the bed.

Sam and Bobby's eyes snapped to the bed in shock as the portrait shook where it lay. Sam rose slowly from the chair and limped over to it, looking down with wide eyes.

"Careful, Sam," Bobby warned him.

"No." Sam took the portrait up in his hands and stared at his brother's profile. "It's him. It's Dean."

"You can't be sure of that."

"Yes, I can," Sam whispered and looked up and around the room. "Dean? Are you here?" He gasped in a breath as the picture shook suddenly in his hands and felt tears sting at his eyes. "Dean."

"Right here, Sammy," Dean said quietly, keeping one hand on the edge of the frame as he watched his brother struggle with his emotions. "I'm right here."

_**-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-** _

_To Be Continued…_


	2. Chapter 2

_**CHAPTER 2** _

Bobby watched the portrait in Sam's hand shake and felt tears in his own eyes. He wiped irritably at them and looked around the room, as if expecting to see Dean. "Dean? You alright son?"

The portrait rocked wildly in Sam's hands and he smiled, then sniffed as he wiped at his own eyes. "Pretty sure that was Dean telling us to stop asking stupid questions." The frame moved again and Sam let out a heavy breath, staggering slightly in relief.

Bobby caught his arm and eased him back to sit on his bed. "Hasn't been twelve hours yet since you lost all that blood, idjit. Sit."

Sam nodded and eased his right leg out straight. The puncture wounds from the basilisk burned under the bandage and he rubbed a hand over his jeans. Had it really only been a half a day since then? It seemed longer since every fiber of his being had suddenly been focused on nothing but Dean and that damned portrait. "He's alive." Despite his weariness, Sam's eyes glowed with renewed hope.

"Now we just gotta figure out how to get him out of there." Bobby eyed the painting angrily. He looked back up with a frown. "Either of you boys have the EMF on at any point while you were in that motel?"

Sam shook his head. "No reason to." He got up and hobbled over to his bag.

"Dammit, Sam. Would you just stay down already?" Dean growled. It was hurting him watching his brother hurt and being unable to do anything about it.

"Sam, for cryin' out loud." Bobby rolled his eyes, watching Sam make his painful way to his bag and then back to the bed.

"I think my sore leg can take a back seat to Dean being missing, Bobby," Sam glared at him as he dropped back to sit on the side of the bed and turned on the meter. The needle twitched but otherwise made no movement. "Dean?" Sam put a hand on the portrait beside him and felt it shudder while the needle stayed stubbornly still. "Ok. He's not a ghost. That's something."

"He's registering, but barely," Bobby mused as he took the meter from Sam and watched it twitch. "We need a more sensitive meter. Hang on."

Sam watched Bobby walk out of the room and let his head sag forward once he was alone. He was exhausted. It was part stress, part blood loss, and part how rough the last couple days had been on him physically. The portrait shook again next to him and Sam smirked. "I'm fine, Dean."

"The hell you are," Dean growled and knelt in front of Sam and studied his drawn features with concern. "Little brother, you are one step away from passing out." Sam's face was even paler than it had been hours earlier at the motel. He was practically translucent now, and his eyes, when they were opened, were glazed with pain. Dean hovered a hand over where he knew the wound on his brother's leg was. "You're in a lot more pain than you're fessin' up to, dude." He stood in front of Sam as Bobby came back in. "Bobby, would you pay attention to this little idiot already?"

"This oughta do the trick," Bobby said and sat at the table with a small bag. He pulled a large meter out and set it on the table, flicking the power switch. "Gave this one's sensors a little boost on this job in Roanoke last year. Ghost was bein' cagey as hell." The needle climbed halfway up the scale and Bobby smiled. He picked it up and swung it slowly around the room. The needle went higher when he pointed it at Sam. Bobby moved to the bed and swept the meter slowly, smiling sadly when it buried itself while pointing to the air next to the kid. Dean was standing beside his brother, whatever state he was in.

"We need to go back to the motel." Sam pushed himself up and picked up Dean's portrait. "There has to be something there. We just need to look."

Bobby clicked off his EMF meter and shoved it in a pocket. "Alright, but we stick together. Whatever happened to Dean happened while he was alone. I'm not having a repeat and lose you too."

Dean growled in irritation. He wanted to be fixed, but Sam needed downtime and for some reason, no one but the invisible guy seemed able to see it. "Dammit." He followed them outside and growled again as Sam got into the passenger seat of the Impala and Bobby climbed behind the wheel. "Great. Stuck in the back seat of my own damn car." He climbed through the door and sat. "Whoa!" Dean shouted in surprise as he went through the seat to the ground and the car began to back out without him. "Aw come ON!" He jumped to his feet and felt something catch at his hip as the car moved through him. He looked down and saw the portrait on the seat beside his brother for a moment and then it was past him. He groaned and jogged to catch the Impala as it backed up and then stopped.

"This sucks!" Dean moved so he was in the center of the front seat and then sat, making sure to land on his portrait. It worked and he found himself sitting in the car and being pulled along with it as Bobby drove forward. He glanced down and jerked in surprise, finding his right arm half in his brother's chest. "Not gonna get used to this."

Sam stared at the motel as Bobby parked in front of it again. He couldn't understand how he hadn't seen it before; the whole building had a look of disrepair about it, more than motels usually did. It was dingy with the paint peeling on the walls. Whole sections of tile were missing from the long roof, and the windows were covered in a layer of grime that made the glass look more like cardboard than glass. Even the paving of the parking lot was crumpled up in places with time while grass grew up here and there.

"How did we not notice this before?" Sam asked.

"Has to be part of the spell," Bobby said and opened his door. "We were part of it until Dean was taken, and now…now it doesn't need to fool us anymore." He went to the trunk to get them each a shotgun.

Sam climbed out slowly, having to take a moment to steady himself on the door and saw the portrait of his brother shiver on the seat. "Shut up, Dean. I'm fine," Sam said softly and then rolled his eyes. "Ok; not great, but I'll be fine until we get you back."

"Sam?" Bobby rounded the car from the trunk and took careful stock of the younger Winchester and the almost dazed look on his face before he met his eyes. "You alright?"

"Yes, dammit. I wish everybody would stop asking me that. Come on." Sam shut the car door, leaving the portrait on the seat. "I don't want to bring it any closer to the building. No telling what could happen to him if it stays here too long."

"Good idea." Bobby stood and watched Sam limp out from the car, resisting the urge to take his arm. Given the mood he could clearly see on his face, Sam would likely snap at him. He shook his head with a fond smile as he followed; just like his big brother. "We should start in the office. Here." He handed Sam one of the shotguns loaded with rock salt.

Sam nodded. "I saw a little apartment off the back. That has to be where Josephine lived." He hefted the gun and tried to even his stride while ignoring the nagging pain in his leg. He knew if Dean were there…properly…he'd have had him flat on his back in the backseat on the way to Bobby's and mother him into a bad mood. He sniffed and swallowed back the tide of fear again. He'd gladly put up with Dean mothering him for days if he could just have him back now.

"Head in the game, Sam," Bobby nudged his arm as he saw him staring off at the length of the motel and frowned, just then realizing how pale the boy looked. Bobby looked around the empty parking lot and couldn't help imagining the disapproving look on Dean's face wherever he was standing, and Bobby knew, without a doubt, that Dean was shadowing them even with the portrait left in the car.

"Come on," Sam called and stepped into the rental office. He kept a hand on the counter, using it to steady himself as he walked around it and toward the door he'd only looked into earlier. He couldn't help the feeling that the shadow portraits on the walls were looking at him, following his progress. He shook himself and walked into the little apartment off the back of the rental office.

Unlike the rest of the motel, in here there was no dust. Everything was pristine as though it had been cleaned only moments before. There were little trinkets laid out on every available surface, and Sam stared, somewhat horrified, at the double row of shadow portraits hanging over a grossly over-stuffed wing-chair covered in purple lace.

Bobby came up behind him and held the EMF meter out toward the chair. The needle buried itself in the red. "Huh. I'm guessin' this is the old lady's comfy chair." He aimed a kick at it. "Maybe if we burn it, we can free all these poor suckers."

The room suddenly quaked wildly as Bobby's EMF screamed, and Sam was knocked to his knees by the vibrations. "Uh…you think pissing her off is the best way to start here?" He clamped a hand over his right thigh. "Crap."

Dean hovered over his brother and glared around at the shaking room. "You bitch! You leave them alone!" He shouted, shaking with the unfamiliar feeling of helplessness.

"Sam?" Bobby knelt beside him and scanned the room in case anything decided to come flying at them.

"M'alright," Sam managed between clenched teeth. Every sharp movement was a reminder that the basilisk's fangs had pierced muscle. He groaned softly. "Help me up."

"Sam..." Bobby sighed, resigned. "Alright." There was no point in arguing with him with Dean…whatever the hell he was. He'd known them all their lives, and if there was one thing guaranteed to make one of them single-minded, it was the other being in trouble. Hell, they'd do some damn stupid shit when that happened, and he scowled, once more reminded of Dean's deal with the damn devil.

Sam regained his feet with Bobby's help, clasping his free hand on his jacket. "So, she's a ghost and everyone else is just…trapped in her damn portraits?"

"I dunno." Bobby pulled Sam back to the door to the office while the room still trembled. "Maybe. There's gotta be something holding her here."

Sam mentally catalogued everything he could see in the room and through the door on the far side to the frilly bedroom beyond. His eyes roamed over the rows of portraits. "Wait." He narrowed his eyes, studying them. "Hang on. Wait here." He pushed away from Bobby and went cautiously across the little parlor to the bedroom, sticking his head inside and holding onto the door frame as the shaking began again. There were more portraits in the bedroom, hung with care on the pastel pink walls.

"Sam, dammit." Bobby followed him and took his arm. He looked behind them at the parlor and yanked Sam to the side as a book flew from a shelf to spin through the door where his head had been. "Time to go."

"Yeah. It's not here anyway." Sam let Bobby support him out of the little apartment, through the rental office, and into the parking lot.

"What's not in there?" Bobby asked once they were safe.

"Her portrait." Sam looked over at him. "The one she was holding in that old photo. I think it was a self-portrait and it's not in there. We need to check all the rooms."

"Alright; but you're waitin' in the car," Bobby told him firmly and started to pull him that way when Sam dug his feet in.

"Like hell!" Sam jerked his arm free, wobbling on his own for a moment. "So you can end up on a wall too? No. We stick together."

"Dammit!" Dean shouted. "I'm gonna look while you two argue." He spun and stalked to the first room, passing easily through the door. "Huh." He turned to look back at the door with a frown. Bobby had left them all open when they'd left a few hours before. He shrugged and went along the walls, eyeing each painting. He didn't see the one that had been in the photo and went back to the door, stepping through and came up short finding himself face to face with Bobby. "Aw, come on guys! We gotta work on our division of labor!" He stepped around them and tried to think of a way to communicate beyond shaking his damn shadow portrait which Sam had left in the car.

"The door's closed," Sam said and put a hand on Bobby's arm. "They were open when we left…weren't they?"

Bobby looked at the door and backed up a step. "Balls. Yeah, they were."

"Sam!" Dean waved a hand in front of his brother's face and shouted in his ear. "If there were ever a time for that shining of yours to be friggin useful, this is it!" He swiped a hand through his brother's head and his mouth dropped open as Sam shivered and staggered in reaction. "Whoa."

"B…Bobby." Sam stammered and staggered forward as a strange sensation swam through his head.

"Shit!" Bobby caught him and slid an arm around his shoulders. "Sam? That's it. We're outta here."

"Wait. Wait." Sam got his head up and shook it. "That was…weird. Dean?" For just a second, he had had an overwhelming sense of his brother.

Bobby ignored him and pulled him the rest of the way to the Impala. He opened the passenger door and frowned, watching as Dean's portrait shook on the seat. "Dean. Damn."

Sam eased down into the passenger seat and pulled the portrait into his lap. "Dean. What?"

"Be helpful if he remembered the Morse code I tried to teach him when he was a kid," Bobby grumbled and shut the door, going around and climbing behind the wheel.

Dean did his best to pull on the portrait as Bobby started the engine. "Put it back on the seat dammit!" Dean yelled. "I am not sitting in your lap!"

Sam frowned as the frame jerked to his left several times and got the distinct impression Dean wanted him to set it down. He slid the frame back onto the seat and it stopped moving. His eyes widened as he suddenly understood. "He's attached to the portrait."

"Kinda like a ghost." Bobby nodded. "Makes sense."

"So, the portrait is the only thing he can affect in his current…state," Sam mumbled, looking down at his brother's profile.

"And don't you forget it, little brother," Dean said softly, watching Sam beside him as the car pulled away and down the road.

Bobby glared out at the road as he drove to the other motel. They should have been long out of this town by now, chaining Sam to his damn couch for a few days to grump about being sidelined and Dean hovering and pissing him off. He snuck a glance across the seat at him and his glare deepened; he'd seen ghosts with more color than the kid had right now.

"Stop glaring at me," Sam looked over at Bobby with a roll of his eyes. "I'm fine."

Bobby snorted. "Wanna bet what you're brother's sayin' to that right now?" He laughed softly as the portrait rocked between them.

Dean stood as Bobby parked the car and shook himself, standing up through the center of the roof of the Impala. He hovered his hands over the sleek, black metal and sighed. "Aw baby, this is not right." He shook his head and followed the two men into the room and wished he could put a fist through the wall to relieve some of the helpless anger. He did not do helpless well.

Dean grinned when Bobby shoved his brother down on the far bed and took his portrait away. "Listen to the man, Sammy."

"You need sleep, Sam," Bobby said firmly. "You can stay down or I can tie your ass down." He pulled the portrait away and set it gently on the other bed. "I ain't blind. You're about to fall over."

"Bobby…" Sam stared angrily up at him for a moment and then flopped back on the bed, exhausted. "Fine, but just an hour."

Bobby nodded, determined to make sure Sam got at least two or three hours before they did anything else. "Just get some sleep."

Sam tossed an arm over his face and tried to ignore the incessant throbbing in his thigh. He really did want to sleep. His whole body felt worn out; just moving was a struggle and he was nauseous as well. He'd lost more blood last night than he'd thought between the basilisk, Margerie, and then wrestling his brother into the water. Sam's head pounded a tattoo at him behind his closed eyes and he sighed softly, trying to let sleep come claim him.

Bobby sat at the table and waited a good fifteen minutes until Sam's breathing evened out in sleep then stood. He scribbled a note to let him know he was going to look up Josephine's resting place. He figured Sam would be more likely to sleep if Bobby wasn't puttering around the room keeping him up.

Dean watched Bobby slip silently out the door and groaned. "Dammit, Bobby. He's faking it! You've known him since he was two! COME on!" He looked over and rolled his eyes as, predictably, Sam picked his head up and watched the door close. "Sammy, don't you do anything stupid." He went to the bed and shook his portrait, making Sam look over at it.

"Just doing research, Dean," Sam said softly and sat up, swinging his right leg gingerly to the floor. "I'll sleep when we get you back." He leaned his elbows on his knees and rested his head in his hands for a moment. "I can't do this without you. I don't know how to be…anything without you around," Sam's voice was a whisper clogged with emotion. "I have to find a way to save you, Dean. I have to."

"Sam." Dean knelt in front of his brother and suffered with him. "You'll be fine without me. You gotta believe that. You don't need me." He looked down and snorted at himself. "It's me that's always needed you, dude. Look what I did. Couldn't make it a week without you before I ran off and sold my damn soul." He looked back up at Sam's bowed head. "You're the strong one, Sammy. Not me. Saving you's the only right thing I've ever done."

"You can't leave me, Dean." Sam sniffed and wiped at a stray tear. "I need my big brother." He stood, wobbling for a moment and went to the table and his laptop. He dropped into the chair and looked across at the portrait on the bed. "Kinda hope you didn't hear any of that."

"Sammy," Dean whispered brokenly from where he knelt and had yet to move. His one consolation was that Bobby would be there to take care of him when he was…gone. Sam wouldn't be alone.

Sam dug into the city construction archives online. Wichita was big enough, metropolitan enough that they had scanned blueprints online years ago. It took him twenty minutes to find the one he wanted and finally he was looking at a detailed map of the motel. At first, nothing stood out. It was the same structure he'd been in, the rooms, laundry room, office and apartment. He frowned and leaned in, seeing a marker for a second page of prints.

"But it's only the one level," Sam muttered and scrolled along the page until he found a new link. He clicked on it and a second blueprint appeared for a sub level to the motel. "Shit." It was a cellar or boiler room, not too large but built just beneath it and connected to the city sewers on one end. "That's where she'll have it." He found the entrance to the cellar and nodded then looked up. Sam stood and went to the bed, looking down at the portrait.

"Don't even think about it, Sam." Dean glared at his brother over the portrait. "I know that damn look. You stay here! You wait for Bobby!"

"I know where it is, Dean. I can get it." Sam ran his fingers along the edge of the frame as it rattled on the bed and smirked. "You're yelling at me, aren't you?"

Dean growled in frustration as Sam went to the table and flipped Bobby's note over, writing his own. The smug little bitch KNEW Dean was yelling at him to stay there and was totally ignoring him just because he was invisible and powerless to stop him. As if that somehow made it alright. It was so NOT alright. Dean added it to his list of things to kick Sam's ass for once he got back.

"I can do this, Dean," Sam said firmly. "Besides, Bobby already pissed off the old woman's ghost. She might not react to me, and I can get into the cellar without having to go into the motel." He straightened and smiled at the profile of his brother. "I'll be fine and you'll be back in no time."

"Sam! Don't you do this!" Dean followed his brother out the door, stalking after him. "Hey! You forgot something, genius! Get my damn picture!" Sam got behind the wheel of the Impala, and Dean could only watch helplessly as the engine rumbled to life and his car eased out of the parking lot. "Dammit!" He ran back into the motel and spent an aggravating minute trying to pick up his portrait but, though he could move it, he couldn't hold on to it. He growled angrily and went back outside. "Fine. I can follow your ass down the damn block!"

Dean broke into a run after the Impala's tail lights. A hundred feet from the room, Dean felt as though he ran into a brick wall. He rebounded backward onto the ground and spent a moment letting his head clear. Dean scrambled to his feet and walked forward with his hands out, finding the invisible wall in the same place. He could do nothing but watch as the Impala turned far ahead into what he knew was the cursed motel.

"SAM! Dammit!" Dean slapped his hands into the unseen barrier in a fury, kept imprisoned by his shadow portrait.

_**-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-** _

To Be Continued…


	3. Chapter 3

_**CHAPTER 3** _

Dean stalked back and forth in front of the motel room waiting for Bobby to return. In his head was a constant loop of every horror scenario his mind could think up for what was happening to Sam on his own and a few that he wanted to inflict on his little brother himself for being so damn stupid. Almost an hour later, Bobby's truck rumbled back into the parking lot, and Dean snarled as the older Hunter got out and stared at the spot where the Impala should have been.

"Yes! He's gone 'cause you bought his line of crap!" Dean shouted and followed as Bobby ran inside the room. "Come on! Let's go already!"

Bobby snarled angrily and went to the table as he spied the note he had left. He picked it up and saw Sam's. "Oh, you idjit!" Bobby exclaimed. He balled up the paper and through it across the room then went to bend over the laptop and look at the blueprints. He glanced up as he heard a rattling sound and groaned, seeing the portrait still lying on the bed shaking violently."I'm guessin' you ain't got anything nice to say to me right now." Bobby dropped his head as the portrait continued to rattle imperiously.

"Alright. Alright. I get it." Bobby went to the bed and grabbed the frame. "I let him snow me, didn't I? Well, let's go find him 'cause he's gonna have more trouble than he thinks if what I think's down there's down there."

"What? What!" Dean growled and followed Bobby out to his truck. He muttered a 'thank you' when Bobby put the portrait on the passenger seat and sat on it. "What'd you find out about the crazy portrait lady?"

Bobby pulled out onto the road with a glance at the shadow portrait. "Too bad you can't tell me how long ago he left." He sighed. "The old lady's presumed dead, but her body was never found. They gave her a symbolic burial when they couldn't find her and figured she went senile and wandered off somewhere to die."

"Son of a bitch." Dean rolled his eyes "She's in that damn cellar."

"I figure she's in the cellar." Bobby said, unable to hear Dean. "Probably went down there to die…or kill herself when she cursed the place." He shook his head, feeling strange talking to an empty car even though he knew Dean could hear him. "You know he gets this cowboy crap from you, son."

"Shut up," Dean snarled, irritated that Bobby was right. He glared at the cursed motel as Bobby pulled up and parked out front beside the empty Impala. "Sam, you better be in one piece."

_**-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-** _

Sam stopped and slapped a hand out to the wall beside him as his right leg buckled. "Shit," Sam groaned. He adjusted the bag on his shoulder and shoved upright again. He was stocked with salt and lighter fluid and had the sawed-off loaded with rock salt as well in case old Josephine decided to make an appearance. He stumbled around the back of the motel office and saw what he wanted - a slanted door hidden by overgrown weeds up against the back wall of the old woman's apartment.

"Gotcha." Sam set the duffel down and knelt awkwardly, pushing weeds out of the way to find the handles. He slid a hand under the rusted metal and pulled, groaning with the effort of lifting the long disused door. "Come on…dammit." He tugged again, and finally the door broke free and swung up. Sam laid it over to the side and grabbed his duffel again. He took out his flashlight and the shotgun before slinging it back over his shoulder. "Ok, Josephine." He stepped down on the first, stone step and shouted in surprise as something hard pushed him in the center of the back, toppling him forward. There was nothing to hold on to as he rolled to the bottom of the stairs and landed in a sprawl at the bottom. The door above him slammed shut and he moaned.

"Son'f'a bitch." Sam sucked in a breath and curled around his right leg, holding it with one hand and his now throbbing left elbow with the other. He'd whacked it on a step during the fall. He let go of his elbow to put a hand out over his spinning flashlight and stopped it from flashing into his eyes. He braced his bad leg and pushed until he was sitting against the cold, stone wall at the bottom of the stairs. "So much for…you being…pissed at Bobby." He gasped softly and rested his spinning head against the wall, swallowing back the urge to throw up. "Shit." At that moment, he would have given anything for Dean's disapproving glare and gentle hands helping him back up. He was lucky his head hadn't been cracked open on one of those stone stairs, and if the stars he was seeing were anything to go by, it had been close.

"Get up, Sam," He told himself and spent a long minute getting to his feet. The moment he tried to put his weight on his abused right leg, however, it crumpled, and only his grip on the wall kept him up. He panted through the pain and clamped his right hand over his thigh. He hurriedly shined the light down when he felt something wet and groaned, finding two growing spots of blood. "Great. Dean's gonna kill me," he said softly. "Get it together, already."

Sam shined his light down the narrow hall that turned only ten feet ahead and started limping in half steps, having to keep one hand against the wall to stay on his feet. He sighed and stopped, pulling the bag around in front and tugged the shotgun out, moving the flashlight to the hand keeping him standing on the wall. It put the gun in his off hand, but it was better than nothing; and a lifetime of practice with Dean and his Dad had made him a good shot no matter which hand held the weapon.

He inched on down the hall, blinking furiously while his head pounded and spots danced across his vision. Sam turned the corner and his eyes widened. Like the little apartment upstairs, the cellar was sparkling clean. It, too, was furnished with another overstuffed, purple lace covered chair, a small bed, and shelf after shelf of gleaming knick-knacks sparkling in his flashlight's beam. He hobbled further into the room, careful of his lame leg, and shined his light along the walls.

"Where are you?" Sam whispered. His frustration level rose as he saw there wasn't a single shadow portrait hung on the walls. "Gotta be kidding me." He took another stumbling step out into the room. He gasped as pain shot through his leg and tried to stop his fall to the floor with the little curio table beside him. It crumpled under his weight, and Sam went to the floor in a shower of knick-knacks as his flashlight spun off under the chair.

"Naughty…boy." The voice whispered through the room as the temperature dropped.

Sam rolled to his back and brought his shotgun up, but could see very little in the flickers of light from under the chair. The sound of his heavy breaths filled the little cellar room, and it occurred to him that, according to the floor plans, it should be much larger than it was. Sam shouted in surprise as a cold weight settled over his shoulders and he was dragged into the dark.

_**-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-** _

Dean went ahead of Bobby, grateful the older man had figured out what Dean wanted with all the rocking and brought the portrait with him. It had taken Dean several minutes in the truck banging on the frame to make Bobby understand that it needed to come with them. He was not going to be stuck just out of reach because he got too far away from the damn thing again. Dean rounded the office of the motel and frowned. The cellar door was easy enough to see. Someone, likely Sam, had cleared most of the weeds from it, but it was closed.

"Why wouldn't you leave it open, dude?" Dean asked and stepped down through the doors as Bobby came into sight. "Over here!" Dean yelled and growled when Bobby couldn't hear him. Of course. Dean shrugged and ducked his head through the closed the door as he went down a set of stairs. Bobby would find it on his own soon enough.

"Sammy! You better be down here!" Dean shouted. He wished for a flashlight once his head was beneath the door. Only the narrowest slivers of light peeked through the aged wood above his head as he reached the bottom of the stairs. He saw the hall turn to the left and followed it, wishing his brother could hear him calling.

Bobby adjusted the bag on his shoulder as the corner of Dean's shadow portrait dug into his shoulder and looked along the back of the motel. It was even more overgrown than the front with weeds brushing his knees. A small, cleared area against the back wall of the office drew his eyes, and he waded through the weeds, smiling when he found the cellar door that Sam had obviously brushed off.

"Why in hell'd you close the door behind you, Sam?" Bobby asked softly. He hefted the shotgun in his hand and pulled the door up and away. "Dean, you with me, son?" He waited to feel the frame shift against his back and sighed when it didn't. "Damn." It made him nervous not getting a reaction, and he sincerely hoped bringing the thing back to the motel wouldn't affect Dean somehow. Bobby twisted on the little flashlight duct-taped to his shotgun and started down the stairs. "Sam!"

Dean looked back at the sound of Bobby's voice and then back into the darkness. He came out of the short hall into a room he could barely see. A light flashed at him from beneath what looked like a chair. Dean bent to the floor to look and his face went grim as he recognized his brother's flashlight. He shot to his feet and glared around in the gloom.

"Sam! Sam, where the hell are you?" Dean shouted. He paced the room, sparing a quick glance over his shoulder as Bobby appeared in the door and his light hit the wall opposite him. "He's not here, Bobby, but he was." Dean looked along the walls and scowled. There were no shadow portraits down here that he could see, just more of the old woman's ugly trinkets. Something crunched under Bobby's foot behind him and Dean turned to watch the older man kneel down beside an upended table in a scattering of broken, crystal figures.

Bobby picked up a couple pieces of broken crystal as a bad feeling fell into his stomach. He shined his light on the floor, following a winking trail of the broken figures that ended at the back of the room. He scowled and stood. "Room's too small from the blueprints."

"You're right," Dean murmured and walked along the trail of broken glass until it stopped at the wall. He gave a last glance to Bobby and then stepped through it, shivering at the sensation of walking through solid rock.

_**-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-** _

Sam swallowed a shout of pain as he was thrown over a ledge and dropped several feet onto hard, wet stone. His ears were still ringing from firing his shotgun over his shoulder. All he'd succeeded in doing was getting himself tossed. He rolled slowly to his side and wrapped his hands around his right thigh, feeling the fresh blood oozing from the sodden bandage.

"Josephine!" Sam called hoarsely and took one hand from his leg, feeling around in the dim light for his shotgun or his bag. He glanced up, opening his eyes wide to try and see. There was some sort of small opening above him, twenty feet or more on down the tunnel, and Sam realized he was no longer in the celler; he'd been dumped into the sewer that connected beneath the motel. He let his head thump back to the wet stone. "Awesome."

"Broke my pretties."

Sam jumped as the woman's voice whispered in his ear. "Uh…Josephine?" He eased up so he was sitting, and used the wall to get slowly, painfully, to his feet. "Sorry about…breaking your things."

"Naughty."

Sam rolled his eyes. "I need you to let my brother go, please."

"He's naughty too." Her voice deepened, echoing angrily in the tunnel.

"Dean? Well, I mean…he's…" Sam sighed and snorted, sort of agreeing with her. "Ok, yeah. My brother's a pain in the ass, but he doesn't deserve what you've done to him. Please, Josephine…"

"Dented my wall." Josephine snarled.

Sam started easing down the wall toward the light. He remembered Dean punching the wall when Sam had told him about his plan to try and save him. The memory was bitter and wrapped in the agony of the venom from that night. The wounds in his thigh seemed to throb in time with the pounding of his heart. "Josephine…Dean's a good man. You have to let him go. Him…and all the others. Please."

"The others?" Josephine's voice sounded confused, and Sam narrowed his eyes, seeing a form begin to take shape a few feet away. "I can't let them go. Their souls are gone."

Sam shivered as she laughed softly. "What do you mean 'gone'?"

"They had to die to join my work." Josephine said it as though it should be obvious to him.

"You killed them?" Sam peered around the tunnel floor, trying to see his shotgun or his bag.

"They deserved death." Josephine's voice was bitter. "Naughty people…didn't like my work…my art. Now they are my art. But your brother is…different."

Sam's blood ran cold and he stopped. "Different how?"

"He wouldn't die when I took his soul." Josephine's shimmering form drew closer to him, her face slowly beginning to take shape as she stared up at him. "Something else...something evil…has hold of him." She shook her head, ghostly grey hair swaying around half-formed shoulders.

"Let him go," Sam pleaded softly.

"No." Josephine moved up in front of him, and Sam pressed back into the wall. "Naughty boy. I promise…" She raised a hand up toward his jaw. "…to hang you beside him."

Sam eyes widened in fear as her translucent fingers grazed coldly along his jaw, and he threw himself to the side, diving to the wet, stone floor in search of his shotgun as she laughed.

_**-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-** _

Bobby banged the butt of his shotgun on the stone wall, moving along it and nodded when he got a hollow sound back. "Now, where the hell's the catch for it?" He moved along the wall, examining each brick, the little paintings in gilded frames with no luck. He went to the shelves and picked up each little dust catcher, growling with frustration when he turned up nothing.

"Mine."

Bobby spun with his shotgun raised at the voice. "Alright, you crazy old bat. Where are ya?" He jumped in surprise as the portrait in his bag dug into his shoulder as it shifted wildly. "Dean?" The bag was suddenly torn from his shoulder as he was tossed across the room into the false wall. "Ok," Bobby grunted as he sat up and gave his head a shake. "Not Dean." He pointed his flashlight and shotgun and watched his bag shred before his eyes. Dean's shadow portrait flew out of the remains and slapped into the wall with a thud, sticking there.

"You leave him alone!" Bobby roared and regained his feet in a rush.

_**-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-** _

Dean walked slowly down a long hall in the dark. Oddly, the grey film that seemed to cover over his vision helped him see. He couldn't make out details, but he knew where the walls were and when to turn. He followed the sound of dripping water and wrinkled his nose at a smell that was all sewer and funky, stagnant water.

"Sam!" Dean shouted, and then growled because what was the point in yelling for him when Sam couldn't hear him. He heard something else above the water; it was a woman's voice raised in a laugh. Dean broke into a run, somehow knowing that it couldn't be good. "Sammy?" It didn't matter he knew his brother couldn't hear him; he couldn't stop calling for him. It was a little surreal running and not hearing his boots slap into the stone floor under him or his voice echo when he shouted. It made him feel as though he were deaf. Dean skidded to a stop at a sudden drop off, almost going over and windmilled his arms to stay standing.

"Shit!" Dean stepped back and saw he was in the entrance to the sewers proper. Twenty or so yards down from him was a small grate in the high ceiling letting the last of the daylight filter down into the tunnel. Dean's breath froze in his lungs. Beneath that light lay the still figure of his brother, face down. The spirit of an old woman stood beyond him, laughing, while a half-formed, translucent shadow portrait began to form above Sam's back, spinning slowly in the air.

"SAM!"

_**-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-** _

_To Be Continued…_


	4. Chapter 4

_**CHAPTER 4** _

Dean jumped off the ledge to the floor below, noting absently that he was standing with one foot in Sam's duffel and the other in his shotgun. His fingers itched to grab the shotgun, instead he ran for his brother and the ghost.

"HEY! Get away from him!" Dean roared at the old woman's spirit.

"You!" She looked up at him with wide eyes, and then her face hardened into a sneer. "You're too late. He's mine too, now!"

"The hell he is, bitch!" Dean dropped next to his brother's head. Sam lay face down in the water running along the center of the tunnel, his dark hair floating in a halo around his head, and fear choked the breath from Dean's lungs. "Sam!" Dean shouted desperately, even knowing as he did so that Sam couldn't hear him. He had a sudden flash from earlier in the day when he had touched his brother's head outside; Sam had reacted strongly and nearly fallen down in a daze. In a moment of inspiration, Dean thrust both his hands into Sam's head with all the panic and terror he felt roaring through him. "SAM!"

Sam's body convulsed as a wave of chaotic emotion not his own rushed through his mind, and his head came up out of the water on a choking gasp. He rolled to the side as consciousness flooded back to him, and his head felt like it was splitting in two as the disorienting sensation continued. Yet…over the top of the pain was the overwhelming sense that his brother was there with him.

"D…Dean?" Sam coughed, breathing raggedly on his back and absolutely positive that his big brother was beside him.

Dean leaned back on his heels and sucked in his own breath, wiping a hand over his face and the stray, panicked tear that had escaped him as he watched Sam panting for breath on the floor in front of him. The newly forming shadow portrait in the air above them burst apart in a shower of light and vanished.

"NO!" Josephine screamed loud and long. Her fury blew through the tunnel, and Dean watched frost spring up and spread along the floor and walls and over Sam's sopping clothes, even freezing the droplets of water on his face.

Dean stood and advanced angrily on her. "You touch him again and I swear I will end you. I'll find a way!"

"He's mine!" Josephine screamed at him.

"No! He's mine, bitch!" Dean threw aside everything his Dad had ever taught him about not hitting women and threw a punch into her face. His hand passed through her snarling grin, but just when he thought nothing would happen, she dispersed in a cloud of smoke. "Whoa. Sam." He spun back and knelt beside his little brother who had yet to open his eyes or move beyond rolling over. He was still breathing heavily and coughing water. "Come on, buddy. You gotta get up."

"Sam!"

Dean's head whipped up at the sound of Bobby's voice and he sighed heavily; relieved. "Thank God. You're gonna be ok, Sammy." He put a hand out to his brother's neck and then drew it back, dropping his head. "Can't say the same for me."

_**-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-** _

Bobby tore the little sitting room apart looking for the mechanism for the wall. He'd tried to pull Dean's shadow portrait from its new home with no success. Whatever the old woman's ghost had done, it wasn't moving. He couldn't even dent the frame, let alone remove it from the wall. He'd turned his fury on the room instead. He snarled angrily and kicked at a little end table.

He grinned as it went over sideways, and the wall across from him started to move with a low rumble. "'Bout damn time." Bobby slipped sideways through the gap before it opened fully as a sense of impending danger swept over him. Sam needed him. He knew it, and there was no way he was going to fail Dean twice in one day. He emerged into a long hall, more of a tunnel, and jogged down it. He shined his light to the floor and did a double take as he saw clear drag marks. They had to have been made by Sam. "Sam!" Bobby yelled as started jogging faster down the hall. He slid to a stop at a ledge and heard coughing. He looked over down what had to be a sewer tunnel and saw Sam lying on his back on the floor coughing and gasping air in and out.

"Sam!" Bobby sat and jumped to the floor below, stumbling on Sam's bag and shotgun and ran to him, dropping beside the boy. "Sam? Come on." Bobby pulled him up against his shoulder and scowled as he found him ice cold and covered in a layer of frost. "Talk to me. You alright?"

"Bobby." Sam shivered against him and finally got his eyes open. "D-Dean was h-here…f-felt him."

"Ok." Bobby rubbed his free hand up and down Sam's arm, trying to warm him while he shined his flashlight up and down the tunnel. "How'd you get down here?"

"G-ghost." Sam's teeth chattered. "T-tried to k-kill me…make m-me a por…portrait." He looked up at Bobby intently. "Dean s-saved me."

"I believe you, son. You stand?" Bobby asked him worriedly. His worry rose another notch when Sam didn't answer right away. "Sam?"

Sam heard Bobby as though from a distance as that 'other' feeling stole over him again and his head started to pound.

"That's it, Sammy." Dean whispered from where he knelt beside his brother and Bobby. He had the tips of the fingers of one hand just touching Sam's head. "You hear me? You gotta hear me, Sammy. She's down here. I know it. I can friggin' feel it. She's here."

"She's d-down here, Bobby," Sam said after a moment. He wrapped his hands around Bobby's arm. "H-help me up."

"We'll get you warm." Bobby lifted Sam to his feet and held on to him as his right leg collapsed. "I'll come back…"

"No. N-not leaving," Sam said fiercely. "We g-gotta find her. Now." He knew without a doubt that if she could find a way to kill his brother now, she would do it. They had pissed her off and now Dean had robbed her of Sam. She was going to want payback. He pulled himself upright with Bobby's arm, shuddering at the feel of his cold-stiff, wet clothes against his skin.

Bobby scowled but knew that look well enough. Short of knocking Sam down and carrying him out, they weren't leaving. "Stay here for a sec." He leaned Sam up against the wall and waited to make sure he'd stay there then he ran back and picked up Sam's bag, slinging it over his shoulder, and grabbed his shotgun. Bobby went back and found Sam as he'd left him; leaning on the wall and trying not to shake himself apart with the chill. "Here."

Sam wrapped stiff fingers around the stock of the sawed-off shotgun and nodded to Bobby. "Thanks."

"Don't thank me yet." Bobby rolled his eyes and pulled Sam away from the wall, letting him lean heavily on one arm. "I get you killed down here, Dean's gonna haunt my ass."

Sam gave a weak chuckle, imagining he could see his big brother nodding along beside them.

Dean was nodding as he hovered at Sam's elbow. "Damn right I would, Bobby." Dean could do nothing but watch as Sam winced, cringed and sucked in a breath with each step he took on his bad leg. It was killing him. "Promise, dude. Soon as we get out of this, you can spend a week reorganizing Bobby's library from the couch." He groaned as his stomach rumbled imperiously and cramped. "Holy crap. I'm gonna start carrying jerky."

"That way…I think," Sam said and pointed ahead where the tunnel split. "G-go left."

"Why left?" Bobby stopped them and shined the light back and forth down both tunnels, seeing no difference. Dean also waited curiously for Sam's answer.

"Just a f-feeling." Sam shrugged.

"Good enough for me." Dean nodded and went ahead of them down the left tunnel, following the walls in the dark with his altered sight.

Bobby looked over at Sam's pale face and sighed. "Left it is." He started them moving again, turning into the left tunnel. "Sam, you should know…Dean's portrait…" He broke off as he felt Sam jolt under his arm. "She took it back. It's on the wall in that cellar…parlor thing. I couldn't get it off again."

Sam took a steadying breath. "All we h-have to do is f-find her."

"We'll get her, Sam, and we'll get Dean back." Bobby said it fiercely. He was done playing around with this bitch. His boys had been through enough the last two days, and he could tell Sam was only keeping himself conscious through sheer force of will.

Sam wrapped his arms around his chest as they walked, grateful for Bobby keeping him standing. He ran a hand down his face, wiping away water and frost crystals from his hair. They turned a curve in the tunnel and stopped as Bobby's light showed a heavy, iron door blocking the way.

_**-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-** _

Dean stepped through the iron door and into another small chamber like the parlor above. He gave a full body shudder at the odd sensation of crossing through the iron, thankful it hadn't stopped him. This one was pitch black and even his altered sight was having trouble seeing anything but where the walls were. He eased into the room and knew he wasn't alone.

"I know you're in here you crazy old bitch," Dean growled into the darkness. "Show yourself." He watched a small ball of light begin to form in the center of the room and grinned. "That's it. Let's go for round two. I'm definitely not done screwin' up your day yet."

"Naughty boys." Josephine's voice growled through the little room. "Should have turned you both the first night."

"Why didn't you?" Dean circled her slowly appearing figure. He passed a hand through the edges of her body here and there as he passed, making her scream her frustration as he interrupted her ability to manifest. Something about whatever she had turned him into made him ghost kryptonite. This he could have fun with. "Or are you just that twisted? Like playing with your food."

"I do not eat…"

"Oh, save it, Casper." Dean snarled and kicked a leg through hers, making them vanish as she screamed again. "All those portraits aren't just trophies. Making us makes you stronger. You're feeding on the souls of the dead like some twisted ass vampire."

"Shut up." Josephine's face appeared and she aimed a murderous glare at him.

"Can't feed on me though, can ya', sweetheart?" Dean grinned darkly at her as he circled. He cocked his head slightly, hearing a bang from the direction of the door; Sam and Bobby were coming. He just needed to keep her occupied so she left them alone. "Bet that's just burning your ass, ain't it?"

"You're different." Her voice ground out angrily as she followed him with her eyes while he paced around her. Then she smiled. "But you're still mine. I have you."

Dean snorted. "Whatever happens, you won't get to keep me." He thumped his chest with a grim smile. "My soul's already got a date for the dance. Sorry." He swished a hand through one of her arms, chuckling as it dissipated and she howled her fury.

_**-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-** _

"It's an overf-flow door." Sam nodded to a small wheel inset in the wall beside it. "T-turn that. Should open."

"Ok." Bobby leaned him up against the wall and handed him his own shotgun. "Keep the light on the door."

Sam nodded as he took it, pushing his own under his arm and raising Bobby's. He couldn't stop the wavering of the light as he shook with cold. He decided he didn't care what condition Dean was in when they got him back; he was getting dibs on the first hot shower, and Dean could whine about it, because, no matter what, Sam was not walking out of that sewer without his brother.

Bobby had to lean in to turning the small wheel. It was rusted with age and resisted movement at first. "Balls. Move, you old piece of crap!" he growled and put his shoulders into it. Once he'd given it two protesting turns it moved more freely and he spun it as fast as he could. The door beside him began rolling slowly into the wall and he spun the wheel faster.

Sam aimed the flashlight into the widening crack and stared in surprise. "Bobby, she's here!"

"Good," Bobby grunted and kept spinning the wheel. "Have her…toasted and roasted in…no time."

"No, no. I mean she's here!" Sam slid forward on the wall and aimed the shotgun at Josephine's ghost through the opening door. She opened her mouth in a scream, and then, as Sam watched, she seemed to burst apart. He frowned as her figure exploded in a cloud as though dispersed with salt or iron, and Sam gasped in a sharp breath in shock as he saw the unmistakable phantom image of his brother's face in that smoke for just a moment. "Dean." Sam's heart clenched hard in his chest.

"Alright." Bobby went quickly to Sam and took his shotgun back, stepping in to the small room. "Where'd she go?"

"Dean." Sam pulled his own shotgun back out and used the wall to hold himself up and follow Bobby inside the small room. "Don't ask me how, but…it was Dean."

"Sammy, you're not lookin' so good," Dean said softly while he watched his brother come slowly into the room and lean heavily against the wall. It didn't escape him that Sam was doing his best to avoid putting any weight on his right leg. He knew punctured muscle would heal quickly if given a couple days or slow and painfully if abused. He sighed, wishing he could tell Sam to sit the hell down, because slow and painful was obviously in his future.

Bobby scowled looking down at the floor and paced the perimeter of a five foot depression in the center. A handmade, purple lace quilt lay over top of it. "Well, this looks promising." He bent and picked up the corner, flipping it aside. "Yahtzee." Josephine's bones had been hidden beneath the quilt. They had lain undisturbed for over two decades her skeletal arms were still crossed peacefully over her chest.

"So she just c-came down here and died?" Sam clenched his teeth together to stop them chattering.

"Or someone brought her down here." Bobby shrugged. "Don't suppose it matters really." He pulled Sam's bag around off his shoulder and took out the can of salt. "Either way this crazy old bat's personal art gallery ain't gettin' any more additions." He opened the can and started pouring a thick layer of salt over the bones.

"Bobby," Sam eased into the room another step with his right shoulder against the wall and had to close his eyes for a moment against the pain in his thigh and the sudden fear. "Do we know this will work? What if forcing her to move on doesn't…what if Dean doesn't come back?"

"He will," Bobby said surely and knelt to the bag to find the lighter fluid. "She's the one holdin' him where he is."

"I'm coming back, little brother." Dean stood in front of Sam and stared into his pain-filled, hazel eyes when he opened them. "You're not losing me ahead of time. I promise."

Sam looked back up and gasped. "Bobby!" He raised the shotgun and fired a salt round into the old woman as she materialized behind the older Hunter.

"Shit!" Dean gasped and staggered back as the rock salt passed through him. He rubbed a hand over his chest and looked down expecting to be wounded, staring in surprise when he wasn't. He turned a disgusted look to his brother. "'Least that didn't hurt as much as the last time you shot me with my own damn gun." It had stung going through him, but he smiled as Josephine was blasted to shreds again.

"Thanks, Sam." Bobby grinned up at him and poured lighter fluid over the salt-covered bones.

Sam fought the need to pass out. Between exhaustion, his wounds, nearly being drowned…he figured he had maybe thirty seconds left in him and silently begged Bobby to hurry the hell up and light Josephine already. He watched Bobby light and drop a book of matches, following the glowing trail into the impromptu grave and let his eyes close finally. "Dean?" Sam felt himself falling, heard Bobby gasp, and then there were strong arms catching him and holding him up and a familiar shoulder for his heavy head to drop onto with the smell of gun oil and leather in his nose that screamed 'home'. Sam gave a weary sob of relief as they both went to their knees.

"Easy. I've gotcha, Sammy." Dean murmured to his brother and slid his arms more firmly around him as he caught him and went to the ground, savoring the ability to actually touch again. He felt the hitch in Sam's breathing that matched his own. "Easy."

Bobby watched across the flames as Dean simply materialized in front of his brother and caught the younger man as he collapsed. He blinked furiously with his heart in his throat and gave Dean a nod that spoke volumes when he met his eyes over Sam's head.

Dean felt Sam shudder as his body heat warmed him, and he pulled him in closer. The sensation of reforming had been disorienting to say the least, but the moment he'd appeared, he'd shoved it aside to help Sam. The warm puffs of breath into his neck were all that kept him from reliving Cold Oak as they knelt together on the floor. He gripped Sam tighter for a minute, and he wasn't above admitting, to himself at least, that this once he didn't mind skirting the chick-flick line.

"You with me, Sam?" Dean asked finally and smirked when Sam just nodded into his shoulder. "You wanna try using your words like the big kids?"

Sam snorted a soft, watery laugh but didn't move even though his thigh was burning in that position. "Bite me," He muttered and heard Bobby laugh beyond them.

Bobby went to them by the light of the fire and clasped a hand tightly around Dean's free shoulder. "Damn good to see you, son," he said gruffly. "You feel alright?" If his hand lingered on Dean's shoulder a little longer than was necessary, no one called him on it.

"Head kinda feels like that morning in Vegas after the all night strip poker game." Dean grinned up at him and shrugged lightly. "Other than that, I'm good."

Sam chuckled and finally made himself lean back so he could actually look at his brother. "Told you not to play strip poker with actual strippers."

Dean gave him a lop-sided smile. "Who says I wanted to win?"

"If we're done with the caring and sharing, how about we get the hell outta this freak show motel?" Bobby knelt and took one of Sam's arms, leaving Dean to grab the other and they got him standing again between them.

"I got him," Dean told Bobby and pulled Sam's arm over his shoulders, sliding his other around his waist with a grimace for the cold, wet shirt. He aimed a glare at Sam. "Dude, you ever pull that lone hero crap again, I WILL kick your ass. What the hell were you thinking?"

Sam looked back just as fiercely, meeting his eyes. "That I had to save you."

"Dammit, Sammy…" Dean closed his mouth on the rant he wanted to give him. The things Sam had said back in the motel room when he thought he was alone rang in his ears and he sighed. This wasn't an argument Sam was ready to let him win.

"Don't ask me not to try, Dean," Sam said softly and looked away. "I can't. I won't."

"Come on." Bobby broke in and slid back under Sam's other arm, heading off the argument before it could happen. He'd heard it before, and, frankly, he was with Sam on this one, and Dean seemed to be the only person incapable of understanding that he deserved to be saved. "He comes up with the flu, you're cleanin' up his snot-rags." He met Dean's surprised glance with raised brows, daring him to carry on the fight.

Dean blew out a breath and rolled his eyes. "You don't catch the flu from getting wet. Aren't you old enough to know that?"

Bobby glared at him as they walked slowly back up the tunnel by the light from his flashlight. "Jackass."

Sam chuckled, tightening his hand in the shoulder of his brother's jacket securely, and then he frowned. "Hey. How did she get you anyway?" Sam looked over at Dean curiously. "Josephine said she had to kill her victims to pop their souls loose. How'd she get you in the bathroom? I didn't see anything."

Dean's face reddened and he looked quickly away. "She, uh…" He cleared his throat.

"She what? Dean?" Sam stared at the side of his face and watched the blush darken as the beginning of a grin spread over his face. "Dude. You were going to the bathroom." Sam closed his eyes and started to laugh despite his pain and exhaustion. "She drowned you in the toilet, didn't she?"

"Shut up," Dean growled and sent a death-glare to Bobby when he started laughing as well. "I can drop your ass right here," He snarled at his chuckling little brother yet hitched his arm higher on his shoulders as Sam sagged. "Bitch."

"Jerk," Sam laughed, weak with relief to have his brother beside him and pissed, right where he belonged. He planned on keeping him there.

"Boys." Bobby rolled his eyes, swallowing back his own laughter.

Dean gladly changed the subject. "Hope you know you're fixing the wiring in my baby." He smirked over at Sam's pale face. "I saw you hotwire her. Not cool, dude. Not cool."

"It's…a car. It didn't mind." Sam smirked and looked over in time to see Dean's disgusted face.

"You had your hands all up in her where they didn't belong, man. She minded!" Dean glared.

"Can't believe you're defending her honor…like I molested the car or something." Sam chuckled and winced as Dean's hand flew up to lightly slap the back of his head.

Bobby snorted and resigned himself to listening to the good-natured bickering for the rest of the day, or at least until Sam passed out, while they adjusted to Dean being back and safe. He aimed his own slap at Dean over top of Sam's head when the older brother gently hip-checked the younger. "Behave." The 'no' delivered in perfect unison told him he was going to need a bottle of whiskey while he was at it as he laughed.

_**-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-** _

The End.


End file.
